


to repress what i’m feeling

by shepromisestheearth



Series: action and consequence [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Reconciliation, after TMP, mention of kohlinar, this could’ve been so so so much better but I’m incapable of writing anything deep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21521602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shepromisestheearth/pseuds/shepromisestheearth
Summary: Kirk confronts Spock about what happened.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Series: action and consequence [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1552141
Comments: 8
Kudos: 59





	to repress what i’m feeling

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys !!! wasn’t planning to make this a series but I decided I wanted to write something revolving around TMP. I’m not super pleased with this, I must admit. I feel like the reconciliation itself is rushed, but one could argue TMP as a whole is a reconciliation, lol. I hope you guys still somehow enjoy this, and let me know if you guys see anything I need to fix! Thanks everyone 💞
> 
> Edit: bro did I even EDIT this? ok lemme fix this sorry guys

“Spock?” 

The Vulcan raised his head from his mediation, arms falling limp at his sides. 

Standing in the doorway was the admiral himself, still in full Starfleet regalia. Hand pressed to the cool metal of the doorframe, his gesture seemed at first glance to be collected; however, as silence passed between them, Spock noticed the twitch of his lips, and how his other hand was clenched stiffly behind his back. 

“Admiral,” Spock addressed him, formal and clipped as ever. 

“May I?” Kirk gestured around the room, eyes lingering on Spock’s face. As if he were afraid of them passing over the furniture and dirtying them with his glances. 

Spock rose from the rug and clapped his hands, “You need not ask permission from me, Admiral Kirk.” 

“And you don’t need to call me Admiral.” There was discomfort in the laugh. 

Kirk swept through the door, and sat down at Spock’s dining table. Eyes glazed over, he looked to a corner, breath measured. 

“Do you wish for me to prepare a cup of tea for you?” Spock inquired, standing still. A large part of him, now no longer blocking his emotions, remembered how he had felt for the admiral. But that had been the reason he had come back to the Enterprise, wasn’t it? He had let his guard down, heard the cry of grief. 

“That would be fine, yes,” Kirk laced his fingers together, and his shoulders relaxed slightly as he leaned forward. 

“I know you are partial to cinnamon in your tea,” 

Kirk glanced up from where he rested his chin on his hand, “You remember?” 

“I repeated the action of replicating tea for you multiple times over the five year period we were-,” Spock hesitated, “Aboard the Enterprise. It would be illogical to forget something I repeated so often,” 

“And we played chess, every Friday.” 

“Yes.” 

Kirk’s lips curled into a smile. 

After punching in the code for black tea with cinnamon and honey, Spock retrieved it and placed it in front of Kirk with a gentle clink. Meeting Jim’s hazel eyes as his hand lingered on the cup, he swallowed at the gentle smile. 

“Thank you, Spock.” 

Back turned, the Vulcan asked, “Would you wish to continue our tradition, Jim?”

For a moment, the only noise in the first officer’s quarters was the hum of the replicator. It dropped so quiet that Spock could hear Jim breathe, hear his own heart in his side. 

“Yes, Spock, I would like that.” Kirk said, so quiet still. 

And so it began. 

Kirk put in a request that a tiered chess board be brought to the quarters; delivered by a nervous ensign, it was placed between the admiral and first officer. Sides chosen, they begin their game with Spock as the first move. Though, while both parties sport nimble fingers on the board, neither have their entire attention absorbed in the game. Kirk spares glances at Spock’s determined face, returning to studying his next move when the Vulcan gently reminds him that it’s his turn. And Spock bristles each time Kirk’s hand jolts out, his own not far enough removed to prevent their skin from brushing. 

Kirk eases back into his chair, eyes flitting around the room once again. While Spock’s quarters never boasted much decoration, they were especially bare now; no molecular models or Vulcan cultural items, save for the meditation mats and pillows. 

He moves his piece from one tier to the next, and clears his throat, “I’m here to ask you about what happened with V’ger. And the Kohlinar.” 

Spock’s eyes lift from the chessboard, lips pressed, “I explained to you at our parting that it was the purging of emotion.” 

“No, Spock,” he held fists to his eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh, “What happened? What did you go through? And- and why did you come back?” 

“You wish for me to explain all of it?” 

“Yes,” 

Spock closed his eyes, and made a temple of his fingers. He started from the beginning; how he had briefly met with his parents in his native province, and how Ambassador Sarek had escorted him to Gol. 

“There I began the first of many fasts, lasting for twenty-five earthen hours, from dawn to dawn.” Wearing the same threadbare clothing of his ancestors, he meditated until he collapsed in exhaustion. “Tasks were physical, as well. Of the earth of Vulcan I packed bricks and constructed a wall beyond my height, my emotions on the other side. For if I could accomplish the difficult task of building a physical wall, I could accomplish the same task within my mind.

“At the other side, I imagined you, Jim. For everything- everything I felt was within you, and I built until I could no longer see your hand press against the brick; until your face and the ruddy sand became one within my mind. And I barely knew you then.” 

Kirk closed his eyes and rocked, and thought of when he himself had attempted to forget Spock. Of drunken nights with strangers met in bars, of blinded dates hosted by Uhura. And none of it had ever worked, because he saw everything in them that they were not and Spock was; had he given them a fighting chance, Spock may not have been here now. 

“Despite its illogic, time slipped past quickly. It was only when I was roused from slumber by priests when I realized that five years had passed; informing me of my ceremony’s dawning.” 

Spock paused, measuring his breath as he moved a chess piece. 

Kirk, who had been listening intensely, had abandoned the game altogether. Jaw feeling slack, he mulled over the intensive discipline; feeling a sharp pang of guilt, waste- and what had he done? The Vulcan had always been thin, but he now looked gaunt before him. 

“When I went to Tai-la, they allowed me ten days to cut off remaining ties and memories. I opened my mind and our meld was still there,” Spock said, resting his hands in his lap and smoothing his robes, “Weakened, exponentially, but it remained. I felt the pain I had repelled at our last meeting. And I wept. On the day when I was to cast out my emotions, I hesitated. My emotions had not been fully purged.” 

His fear confirmed- this had been his doing. 

“I made a fool of you, in front of the Vulcan masters.” 

“I was not made a fool, Jim. They stated my purpose as being elsewhere, my t’hy’la searching for my presence. And my t’hy’la’s wellbeing- the Kohlinar would’ve severed our tie, and cause my death. Or yours.” 

“T’hy’la?” Kirk attempted the Vulcan word, furrowing his brows, “I thought that was just a pet name.” 

“Just as your Greek tradition that humans were once with four legs and arms, and Zeus cast them apart to make two halves of a whole,” the Vulcan explained, “You are my other half, Jim. And I should’ve known,” 

“That’s why- after V’ger, when you held me. Held my hand… that simple feeling. I’m not wrong- am I-?”Kirk stood quickly, but found his legs uneasy. He leaned forward, hands pressing against the solidity of the table. 

“You are not. My love for you is a feeling both simple to understand yet complex in its depth,” Spock’s face grew damp, and he touched his cheek delicately. He reacted to the tears as if a foreign object. 

“Oh, darling-,” it had been years since he called him that. Here he found himself, arms wrapped around the Vulcan; sitting in the chair, enshrouded in himself, ashamed. He rested his chin on the sleek cap of black, slipped down until his lips rested on his shoulder. And he cried, too, cried for Spock with his lips pressing against his shoulder and his hands folded above his lungs. Kirk began to mumble foolishly, “When I got the Enterprise back, I thought I’d be happy. I thought she was all I needed. I kept glancing. Searching,”

Raising his head, he knelt beside Spock and took the hands that had been resting in his lap. He took those hands again, encased them. Pressed them to his cheek. 

“The Enterprise could not fill the hole in me, Spock,” Kirk squeezed Spock’s hands, probably too tightly. He whispered, “But you could. You do,” 

“Jim,” 

Kirk dare raise his eyes to Spock, who had the smallest hint of a smile on his face. And Kirk smiled too, his corners reaching from galaxy to galaxy. His eyes lit up in a way they had not since last laying on that face. His heart pounding, he swallowed, “It's getting rather late, isn’t it?” 

“Would you deny an offer to remain with me?” If the Admiral was a fool, he would’ve said the question was almost shy. 

“No,” Jim gave Spock’s hands one last squeeze before releasing him. Rising to his feet, he offered, “I’ll change into my sleepwear while you meditate. I wouldn’t want to interrupt.” 

Parting from him, Kirk was grateful for his foresight in packing pajamas. A part of him wondered if he was jumping in too quickly. They were reconvening as middle aged men, not two head officers in their early thirties sneaking around beneath Starfleet’s noses. 

At the knock, Spock opened the door. As he had on the Bridge, he took in the beauty that was James T. Kirk. Certainly, he had changed- with age his hair had taken to curl, and lines indicating past smiles sat on his cheeks. He appeared to be of a healthy weight. With all of this, he only became more Jim. 

“Ashayam,” Spock greeted him, offering his hand. 

Jim accepted it, dreading the question, “Spock,” 

“Yes?” 

The lights within Spock’s quarters cast a bluish glow onto his face, making him ethereal. And Kirk loved him so. Despite his greatest effort of hatred, of loathing. He tried it now, but found he couldn’t help himself from loving him. 

“What will happen when your father finds out that you haven’t completed Kohlinar?” Kirk murmured, looking down at their intertwined hands. 

“I only intend to remain with you, t’hy’la.” 

And so he did, and the two shared a bed. Spock wrapped his arms around Jim, asking quietly if he had the permission to meld with him; and his fingers found his meld points. 

From both ends, the two halves were flooded by love and longing. On heartbreak and rebuttal and forget. The meld that had once been like a drying vine in stifling heat now bloomed with renewal. For their souls knew one another, rejoicing at their reunion at the midnight hour.


End file.
